


Tartiflette

by imadra_blue



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon - TV, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Dinner, Drama, Dystopia, Film Meta, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, One Shot, POV Third Person Limited, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:58:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/pseuds/imadra_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over a dinner of French comfort food, Hannibal and Will speak about dystopia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tartiflette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zentamora](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=zentamora).



> Written by request for Zentamora on a Tumblr drabble meme. Prompt: Hannibal/Will - Dystopia (an imaginary place of total misery; a metaphor for hell).

"I thought I would keep tonight's dinner simple."

Will stared down at his roasted ham and tartiflette, all perfectly arranged to Hannibal's satisfaction, his gorgeous blue-gray eyes wide with disbelief. "This is simple?"

Hannibal smiled and poured the wine. "This is comfort food, Will."

"Comfort food is not typically served on expensive china in an arrangement resembling a Van Gogh painting or with wine that costs over a hundred dollars a bottle."

"You really should come over for dinner more often." Hannibal took a seat and straightened his jacket. He never took his gaze off Will. "You might change your criteria for what is typical."

"Even if I ate dinner every day here, I doubt you are capable of changing my definition of typical." Will circled his fork over the tartiflette, as if searching for the right spot, and then stabbed it in the center with just enough force to clink his metal fork against the ceramic plate. A small thrill trickled down Hannibal's spine at the sound. Will took a bite and closed his eyes for less than a second, but enough that Hannibal knew he appreciated the tartiflette. The man who had supplied the lardons had been the sort who needed appreciation so badly that he had been quite disrespectful to female patrons at Hannibal's favorite book store. Hannibal had been happy to provide him with the appreciation that any man who used such crude terms to describe women deserved.

"Was that an insult or a compliment, Will?" Hannibal asked, cutting a neat, bite-sized piece off the ham he had prepared from the same man in need of appreciation. It had taken Hannibal the better part of the last twenty-four hours to ensure the meat had not come out tough.

Will glanced up. "It wasn't an insult."

"Well, then. Thank you."

"No, thank you. The food is as delicious as ever. You should be on a television show. Cooking for the Emotionally Unstable with Dr. Lecter, you could call it."

Hannibal chuckled and took a sip of the wine. It brought out the salty notes of the ham, in contrast to the sweet glaze. "I haven't the time for such things, I'm afraid."

"Neither do I." Will moved onto the ham. As usual, he seemed to favor it over the side dish. Will certainly enjoyed his meat, and Hannibal enjoyed a man who enjoyed meat. "I do watch movies sometimes."

"Do you? Through an online streaming service? I recently subscribed to one on Alana's recommendation. I found a number of classic films, much to my satisfaction, many of which I have yet to see."

Will looked somewhat embarrassed, but managed to swallow his food before responding. Despite his profound psychological problems, he always remained surprisingly polite, even though the mention of Alana lately left flustered. Then again, as the pair moved closer, they also grew further apart. The dynamics were fascinating, filled with the same decaying and life-generating potential of a rotting corpse. "Actually, I go to the theaters," Will finally said, wiping his mouth. "I don't think we watch the same sort of movies. I tend to watch the kind with explosions and enough product placement to start up a small store."

"Oh. Well, then you are right. I don't believe we do watch the same sort of films."

"I admit they're not very good, but they have a certain appeal. And I think popular movies like that have a closer read on the pulse of contemporary culture."

"I have heard such claims by film academics, and their arguments seem plausible enough. What do you understand from these popular films?"

Will took another bite of ham, clearly taking the opportunity to think as he chewed. Once he swallowed, he began speaking. "The movies have grown darker, bleaker. Dystopian worlds are all too common. Long-running series that began lighthearted have introduced dystopias, such as the _Harry Potter_ series. The movies that imply dystopian worlds eventually make them more pronounced, such as the _Batman_ films. The ones who offer supposedly happy endings fail to resolve the problems of their dystopian worlds beyond the destruction of the obvious antagonists. What does killing Voldemort or Bane, for example, actually solve in the long run? Does it change that the government and entire social fabric was utterly destroyed and must be rebuilt? How can romantic success erase the losses the protagonists have already endured? How do the protagonists actually heal after such abject misery? But the movies never answer these questions. They only imply they've been somehow resolved. They cannot envision an actual recovery from dystopia. It's the ultimate modality."

"And you think this reflects our own contemporary culture?"

Will had forgotten his food, but Hannibal did not mind. His fingers drummed on the table, his eyes alight with that same inner fervor as when he began to understand the design of the criminals he so deftly caught. When Will got this fever, he reminded Hannibal of a young priest, drunk on faith, eager to save men's souls, but without the obnoxious zealotry.

"Yes. Don't you?" Will asked, but then kept speaking, his question clearly rhetorical. "Consider the very word 'dystopia.' It means a bad place, essentially. I'm not an etymologist, but the first part, dys-, makes me think of Dis, Pluto's underworld in Roman mythology. In more modern senses, Dis is synonymous with Hell, a place for the dead to suffer, trapped forever beneath the ground, absent the comfort of light."

"Is this what you see, when you go out into the world?" Hannibal continued to eat and drink, though he found it difficult to glance away from Will's flushed face, his lips still moist with the juices of the last man Hannibal had killed.

Will's fingers went still, lying flat on the table. His fingernails were perfectly trimmed and clean, though they had not been during their last therapy session. He had apparently made the effort for dinner tonight. "When I go out into the world—" Will fell silent for a moment before speaking again. "—I see death, usually presented in increasingly horrific fashion, from men turned into musical instruments to totem poles built from corpses. Every person I meet is either victim or victimizer and very often they are both. I see people suffering as they wander aimlessly through blood and flesh and bone. I am drowning in ugliness."

Hannibal savored the taste of wine on his tongue and considered what to say. He saw the same things, but where Will saw ugliness, he saw true beauty. A rude man, stripped clean of offense, offered tender, delectable flesh. He became beautiful when set upon Hannibal's plate, so beautiful that even Will Graham could not resist taking another bite of lardon-encrusted tartiflette.

"So you go out into the world and see dystopia, a living hell. But what about utopia? Do you think such a thing exists?"

"It means nowhere, doesn't it?" Will frowned, his beard crinkling slightly on one side. "So no. I don't."

"But we do more than suffer in this dystopia, do we not? Are we not capable of enjoying a nice meal with a friend? Of saving and protecting lives? Such as Abigail's?"

Will blinked, starting a bit. "I—I suppose we are."

"That does not seem like a living hell to me."

"I suppose it's worth a happy, if unsatisfactory, ending, at least." Will smiled a bit, though it did not reach his eyes, and resumed eating.

…

"Thank you again for dinner," Will said, moving towards his jacket, hanging limp from the coat rack.

Hannibal reached the coat rack first and blocked Will from his jacket. He considered the other man and straightened his jacket. "You are most welcome, Will."

"You say my name a lot," Will said, eyeing his jacket over Hannibal's shoulder before glancing at him. It was hard for him to look at people, so every glance felt like a small victory.

"Do I?"

Will returned to staring at his jacket. "Yes. I should probably go. It's getting late." He seemed more hesitant than usual and wiped his palms on his trousers. Heat bloomed across his cheeks the longer Hannibal studied him.

Hannibal leaned forward to whisper in Will's ear, close enough to smell Will's insistently cheap aftershave. There was something charming about it, much like the comfort food Hannibal had served that night. "You don't have to leave."

Will worked his mouth soundlessly, so Hannibal spared him the embarrassment and kissed him. Will kissed back after a moment, fiercely, as if trying to steal the breath from Hannibal's lungs. His flesh felt heated beneath Hannibal's touch, his beard pleasantly scratchy, and his lips tasted of sweet ham. Hannibal did not hesitate to steer Will towards his bedroom.

He'd always preferred his dessert served in bed.

…

When Hannibal came inside Will later that night, he wondered if the look on Will's face would be as sweet as the one he wore during orgasm when he found out who Hannibal truly was. Without a doubt, Hannibal thought as he clutched Will's sweat-slick thighs, Will would be convinced that he existed in a dystopia.

But a dystopia of Hannibal's making, a beautiful living hell, a utopia where the fatal flaw is that not everyone appreciates the same cut of meat.


End file.
